Various devices exist for cooking, such as an oven, a stove top, a grill, an open flame of fire. These cooking devices are used for preparation of various foodstuffs, including, but not limited to, meat, poultry, vegetables and alike. It is known to use different heat sources in order to cook various foods, such as either using the heat provided from an oven, stove or grill, or having built-in heat source.
It is appreciated that while cooking large fowls such as turkeys, there is a good chance that the cooking may render uneven cooking results. This is due, at least partially, to the fact that the most delicate meat is in the breast that is directly exposed to the heat source, therefore it is being cooked much faster than the interiorly located dark meat, which is shielded by the carcass of the bird and surrounded by dense bones. As a result, the bird can be unevenly cooked, causing one portion of the bird to become overcooked and/or another portion of the bird to be undercooked.
Most cook books recommend cooking a turkey for about 20 minutes per pound in a 325° F. oven. Therefore, an average 17 pound turkey conventionally takes five to six hours to cook. A solution known by professionals is to separate the breast meat from the dark meat, cooking them separately and to reassemble the bird for table presentation. Evidently, this is not a convenient solution for the presented problem, especially for home cooking applications.
Several solutions have been disclosed in the prior art, solutions involving use of an open vessel inserted into the inner hollow cavity of the meat or poultry in order to provide steam into the inner cavity of the meat when roasting. Examples of such prior art cooking devices are described more detail in the following patents CN 11344268; CN 21208192; KR 7072354; U.S. Pat. No. 6,779,438; KR 4077094; U.S. Pat. No. 6,575,082; U.S. Pat. No. 6,502,501; U.S. Pat. No. 7,146,905; WO10247524; U.S. Pat. No. 6,125,739; U.S. Pat. No. 6,192,792; JP 2000271016; RU 2164529; JP 2000166771; U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,612; U.S. Pat. No. 6,062,131; U.S. Pat. No. 5,797,312; U.S. Pat. No. 5,501,142; U.S. Pat. No. 4,913,039; U.S. Pat. No. 4,159,675.
Most of the devices described in the above-referenced documents are designed in a somewhat similar manner and are generally configured to transfer some heat by conduction directly into the foodstuff, which leaves little or no space for steam to cook the meat, rather most of the steam escapes to the outside not to the most inner surface of cavity of the meat which is abutting the outer surface of the open ended can. In addition the steam is only heated to 212° F., i.e. substantially the boiling point of water. In addition, in such devices, the meat or poultry is held in an upright position, which does not provide optimal heat distribution. Another disadvantage of these devices is the necessity to adapt the diameter of the open ended vessel respectively to the diameter of the inner cavity of the cooking foodstuff. Holding the meat in an upright position is unstable and causes possible dripping of liquids onto the heat source.
In the case of cooking large fowls, such as turkeys, usage of this method of cooking is limited due to requirements of size of the heat source, such as an oven or a grill. Furthermore, said method does not allow cooking a stuffed bird as steam dispersion inside the inner cavity of the fowl is blocked by stuffing. All mentioned above has to be performed while, maintaining the stability during cooking process, protecting the exterior of the meat from overexposure to intense heat and allowing shortening the cooking process.